High expectations are dangerous. Here's my list personal oppinion of pro/cons of this game

Pros* It's a very pretty game* The game combination of RTS/FPS is awesome.

Cons* It takes several minutes to load a map. It's quicker to boot my old Win.XP pc with a bunch of apps.* When you're done waiting, you'll have to wait till teams are equal. When teams are equal there's a risc of further waiting for someone to take the job as commander (which is required from both sides before the game will start)* I live in Europe and I see only lots of empty servers. Few full servers. And very rare servers I feel comfortable at joining, either because there's only one player or the skill level is too high.* Aliens are extremely difficult to hit. Expect hours and hours to learn to hit them. Expect even more hours of traning if you play as alien.* Rookie friendly servers are prone to be false advertising. I played a game of 24 players where none of the experienced players * The learning curve is steep. A substantiel part of game is playing as commander, which is difficult to learn because players don't like you as commander if you're rookie (even on rookie servers) and training vs. bots probably won't lead to late game technology.* Its a game for the elite. I feel there's a large gab between rookies and the experienced players.* Ubuntu Linux Nvidia users will experience crash when they fire their weapon* It feels like the game outcome is determined within the first 5 minutes.

The game certainly takes skill. Or perhaps just a lot patience (or cheating.. if you're OK with ruining other peoples experience)

I'd love to find the game amusing. I still try it occationally because I WANT to like it. But I feel I'm being punished for the time I invest in it.The main problem is the loooong overhead time, before an actual game starts. And it's way too speedy once the game begins. It's not very pleasurable.

It could have been a great game, but the implementation isn't very great.

It's true this game is rather cpu/graphics intensive - which is something you need to take into account before you buy the game - but I think that since some of the more recent builds, map loading times have been decreased for many people. Don't be under the impression that you WILL experience slow loading times.

This isn't completely true. As long as both teams have a commander teams don't have to be equal. Typically they will be equal or lopsided by a difference of one player, but not always (in the case of multiple players leaving while the game is beginning).

- "When teams are equal there's a risc of further waiting for someone to take the job as commander (which is required from both sides before the game will start)"

I can't deny that you will often experience a waiting time before a game begins as both teams try to get a commander, but it's certainly not 100% of the time. Also, some servers have implemented mods that will start a game within a certain amount of time regardless of whether both sides have a commander. This tends to quickly motivate someone to hop in the chair/hive lest their team be at an early disadvantage. But regardless, a little waiting never hurt anyone. The game is far too much fun to be forgotten simply because you have to wait to play.

- "Aliens are extremely difficult to hit. Expect hours and hours to learn to hit them. Expect even more hours of traning if you play as alien."

I agree with you here. As a new player, trying to hit a quick-moving alien can and will seem impossible. And when you play as a skulk you will die again and again (and again). It does take a significant amount of time to even become "average", but when you finally break the threshold it is extremely rewarding. There is a lot of depth to this game and you won't necessarily be good at doing everything. You have to find your "niche" so to speak.

- "Rookie friendly servers are prone to be false advertising. I played a game of 24 players where none of the experienced players."

I'll admit, this has become a problem. Having a small player base results in a limited number of servers with enough people to play. That in turn means that experienced players will jump into "rookie friendly" servers so that they can actually enjoy the game too. However, efforts have been and are being made to create true rookie friendly environments for new players to learn in. Besides that, there actually are lots of friendly people in the community who love to help teach rookies. Don't let a few bad apples spoil the game for you.

- "A substantiel part of game is playing as commander, which is difficult to learn because players don't like you as commander if you're rookie (even on rookie servers) and training vs. bots probably won't lead to late game technology."

Some words of advice: you really shouldn't try to command until you have about 50 + hours under your belt. If you really want to try before then, then you MUST have both a microphone and a willingness to LISTEN and COMMUNICATE. This game can become extremely frustrating for everyone when a commander is unresponsive. However if you announce that you are new (via a mic) and show that you will listen to the advice given to you, then most of the time people will be glad to coach you through commanding. Again, don't let a few annoying, loud-mouthed individuals deter you from learning. As long as you listen you will be fine.

- "The learning curve is steep."

This is true. It takes lots of practice to become good and even then there is a significant skilldifference between "new", "average, and "good". A good player can trump an average player just as easily as an average player can wipe the floor with a new player. This is not Call of Duty so don't except to be "pwning noobs" after playing just a few hours.

"Its a game for the elite. I feel there's a large gab between rookies and the experienced players."

As I said there is a large skill gap between new players and those who have many games under their belt. But those "elite" that you are referring to are simply players who have hundreds, if not thousands of hours played. They were once in the same position as you thinking that they would never be that good. You just have to stick with it.

If you play this game just to have fun - and don't rage quit because you die repeatedly - you'll find that you've accmulated lots of hours without even realizing it. If you are one of those people that crave insta-pro status with 100% headshots then this is not the game for you. Go play CoD some more.

I'd like to add to cons random based "balance" of rookie games (didn't see higher ;) ).Had 1-2 lucky days when teams on server had close count on win/loss, good comanders and close enough inmatch clashes skillwise. After that there's streak of 3+ days with horible team balance, wich wasn't fixed by 5-6 randomisation of full waiting room. So... it can be sometimes problematic to have good game at all even if you found ok server, got past all loadings and comander choosing. Don't actually think that playing with friends can fix it, till you're playing with 12-16 friends of same skill level...

@PyrophoricThank you for your response. I'm very stubborn and finally just had a good game, with a good commander. But my stubborness shouldn't be required for a game, that's supposed to be fun.

For this game to be a larger succes I think it takes frequent free play weekends and daily offers to attract new players. It needs to be casual, when it is in fact much focused on tournaments and championships. If the density of new players was larger, I think it would reduce much of the frustration for new players.

For this game to be a larger succes I think it takes frequent free play weekends and daily offers to attract new players. It needs to be casual, when it is in fact much focused on tournaments and championships. If the density of new players was larger, I think it would reduce much of the frustration for new players.

You are right, new players do need to be attracted. The free weekends are good at doing just that as you can see by the big spike in the number of players on those days.

The problem is retention. Those new players that come in on the free weekends don't hang around. Some cite unbalanced games as the reason they lose interest/become unhappy (as you did in your first post). Others say that the developers have focused too much on the competitve scene - as well as championships and the like, as you also mentioned. But don't forget that this game was designed for 6v6 games, which right now you really only find in the competitive scene. So it makes sense that a lot of focus would be in that area

Obviously the game is not perfect, and it's not for everyone, but my opnion is that many players (though not necessarily yourself) don't stick around because they don't get the quick gratification that they are used to from most games. I do understand your frustration though, and from reading these forums fairly regularly I can tell you that you aren't alone.

The game was designed for 6v6? Oo... Wow... Just lil bit shocked.On other side that explains weakness of stationary defence agains 5->8 players in one place.

Balance patches are not that big of a deal for new players. Pro players on rookie servers are. Were some individs playing one serv for sev hr (allways on one side), which was not that great. Think for rooks to be entertained in free weekends, devs need good (for beginers) comander bot, and some sort of ladder system, so beginers could play without choise of commander routine and dominance of profecionals that whanted to... nah, can't think about any good reason to pour in rooks game and beat --- of them.

It's true this game is rather cpu/graphics intensive - which is something you need to take into account before you buy the game - but I think that since some of the more recent builds, map loading times have been decreased for many people. Don't be under the impression that you WILL experience slow loading times

You will get slow loading times. Everyone gets slow loading times. That being said, the game is amazing.

It's true this game is rather cpu/graphics intensive - which is something you need to take into account before you buy the game - but I think that since some of the more recent builds, map loading times have been decreased for many people. Don't be under the impression that you WILL experience slow loading times

You will get slow loading times. Everyone gets slow loading times. That being said, the game is amazing.

Everyone does? I know I don't. Never have. Even before build 259 - which was sent out more or less with the purpose of cutting down on loading times since there were complaints of 2 minutes+ - I only had to wait a MAX of 45 seconds on the first load.

You can look at the threads of people talking about how slow their game loads and actually see replies saying the exact opposite. And then you can even see some of those same people that had slow loading times talk about how they don't have them any more post b259.

The game was designed for 6v6? Oo... Wow... Just lil bit shocked.On other side that explains weakness of stationary defence agains 5->8 players in one place.

Balance patches are not that big of a deal for new players. Pro players on rookie servers are. Were some individs playing one serv for sev hr (allways on one side), which was not that great. Think for rooks to be entertained in free weekends, devs need good (for beginers) comander bot, and some sort of ladder system, so beginers could play without choise of commander routine and dominance of profecionals that whanted to... nah, can't think about any good reason to pour in rooks game and beat --- of them.

I'm pretty certain that a match making/ladder system is in the works, so hang in there! Help is (hopefully) on the way.

The problem is retention. Those new players that come in on the free weekends don't hang around. Some cite unbalanced games as the reason they lose interest/become unhappy (as you did in your first post). Others say that the developers have focused too much on the competitve scene - as well as championships and the like, as you also mentioned. But don't forget that this game was designed for 6v6 games, which right now you really only find in the competitive scene. So it makes sense that a lot of focus would be in that area

Obviously the game is not perfect, and it's not for everyone, but my opnion is that many players (though not necessarily yourself) don't stick around because they don't get the quick gratification that they are used to from most games. I do understand your frustration though, and from reading these forums fairly regularly I can tell you that you aren't alone.

Speaking as someone who put in 500 hours before quitting the game, I think there are a lot more issues affecting retention than players just wanting instant gratification.

One of the biggest issues was performance. You literally needed a overclocked Sandy Bridger to perform optimally in this game even months after release, though I have heard this has changed recently.

Beyond that, they also took forever to fix the tickrate and the lag comp issue, if indeed it has been fixed yet. There has been numerous videos documenting >500ms hitreg differential on UWE forums. It is simply not fun to be shot around walls or missing point blank swipes. This compounds in with the performance issue, all but guaranteeing anyone without a high end CPU to rage over the game at one point or another.

Even if we look beyond the performance issues and the frustrations they cause, there is still the issue of balance. In the months I have played, the patches are literally a series of patches that just keep buffing marines across all levels while refusing to fix their 6v6 metagame with Khamm. I actually posted about this regarding people conceding in game:

Finally, to nail the coffin shut, the rookie server and tag concept simply doesn't work. It was suppose to encourage veterans to be more tolerant and teach rookies how to play (which worked to a certain extent, I spent a lot of time on rookie servers), but most of the time green servers just became a huge d1ck magnet with people insecure about their ego padding their stats from new players. It also started this "rokiephobia." I recall seeing this thread on UWE forums that's titled, "get off my server green players." So you got d1cks farming them in green servers and people asking for them to be kicked in regular ones, and you wonder why the player retention rate is low.

I can probably go on for a few more pages but it basically boils down to this:

tl;dr There is a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGG list of reasons as to why NS2 has a low player retention rate.

It's true this game is rather cpu/graphics intensive - which is something you need to take into account before you buy the game - but I think that since some of the more recent builds, map loading times have been decreased for many people. Don't be under the impression that you WILL experience slow loading times

You will get slow loading times. Everyone gets slow loading times. That being said, the game is amazing.

Try turning off vsync. For whatever reason, some genius decided to make the loading speed tied to the fps cap of loading screen. Turning off vsync reduced my loading time from 2 minutes to 10 seconds on a triple raid0 configuration, so ymmv.

I reported this as a bug a little over half a year ago. I have no idea if they ever fixed it.

You will get slow loading times. Everyone gets slow loading times. That being said, the game is amazing.

Try turning off vsync. For whatever reason, some genius decided to make the loading speed tied to the fps cap of loading screen. Turning off vsync reduced my loading time from 2 minutes to 10 seconds on a triple raid0 configuration, so ymmv.

I reported this as a bug a little over half a year ago. I have no idea if they ever fixed it.

I'll try this next time. That would be absolutely amazing if it works. I'm on a Samsung 840 Pro with a decent CPU, and I know my load times shouldn't be insane, but NS2...

The problem is retention. Those new players that come in on the free weekends don't hang around. Some cite unbalanced games as the reason they lose interest/become unhappy (as you did in your first post). Others say that the developers have focused too much on the competitve scene - as well as championships and the like, as you also mentioned. But don't forget that this game was designed for 6v6 games, which right now you really only find in the competitive scene. So it makes sense that a lot of focus would be in that area

Obviously the game is not perfect, and it's not for everyone, but my opnion is that many players (though not necessarily yourself) don't stick around because they don't get the quick gratification that they are used to from most games. I do understand your frustration though, and from reading these forums fairly regularly I can tell you that you aren't alone.

Speaking as someone who put in 500 hours before quitting the game, I think there are a lot more issues affecting retention than players just wanting instant gratification.

One of the biggest issues was performance. You literally needed a overclocked Sandy Bridger to perform optimally in this game even months after release, though I have heard this has changed recently.

Beyond that, they also took forever to fix the tickrate and the lag comp issue, if indeed it has been fixed yet. There has been numerous videos documenting >500ms hitreg differential on UWE forums. It is simply not fun to be shot around walls or missing point blank swipes. This compounds in with the performance issue, all but guaranteeing anyone without a high end CPU to rage over the game at one point or another.

Even if we look beyond the performance issues and the frustrations they cause, there is still the issue of balance. In the months I have played, the patches are literally a series of patches that just keep buffing marines across all levels while refusing to fix their 6v6 metagame with Khamm. I actually posted about this regarding people conceding in game:

Finally, to nail the coffin shut, the rookie server and tag concept simply doesn't work. It was suppose to encourage veterans to be more tolerant and teach rookies how to play (which worked to a certain extent, I spent a lot of time on rookie servers), but most of the time green servers just became a huge d1ck magnet with people insecure about their ego padding their stats from new players. It also started this "rokiephobia." I recall seeing this thread on UWE forums that's titled, "get off my server green players." So you got d1cks farming them in green servers and people asking for them to be kicked in regular ones, and you wonder why the player retention rate is low.

I can probably go on for a few more pages but it basically boils down to this:

tl;dr There is a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGG list of reasons as to why NS2 has a low player retention rate.

I didn't mean that wanting "instant gratification" was the only reason players stop playing. What I mean is that you get a lot of "CoD-lovers" trying to play this game and raging because they aren't 'good' quickly enough. Then you see them going on rants in the forum about one side being OP, or the game sucking just because they died 10 times. You are able to provide legitimate reasons for not liking something because you actually understand how high the skill ceiling is, understand game mechanics, etc. New players that do not understand end up creating a generally unfounded negative perception of the game.

I don't have the stats on hand, but from the top of my head I don't think they have been buffing marines on all levels. I'm pretty sure I've seen multiple reductions to marine weapon damage levels in the patch notes. I may not be correct, but when I read that it just didn't seem right. Last time I checked I think the aliens even had a greater overall win percentage.

I don't really know what to say about the rookie friendly servers anymore. It surely is a big cause of players leaving this game (the getting stomped in these servers, I mean). But I've seen plenty of arguments from both sides, and some part of me does sympathize with "experienced" players that go into rookie servers to play. We often can't get enough equally skilled players in order to start our own games so we go to the servers that do have players. Yes, there are morally bankrupt people that stomp on purpose - and that's not good at all - but that's not the whole story. Some good news is that tightly-admined servers like |DFA| noobs only are being established which really are rookie friendly and are improving the learning environment for new players.

Overall, I do agree with you. There are a lot of reasons why players are bleeding away. But I think if just a couple of the bigger reasons are fixed then the player base may actually be able to grow, albeit slowly.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun while it lasted. Otherwise I wouldn't have spent close to 500 hours on the game. However, it is really easy to see why new players will be turned off by NS2, teenage console gamer or not.

As for the winrate vs buff comment. Again, the issue was in the metagame. Aliens might still be winning games, but a good portion of that is early rushes or a early rush leading to a decisive victory. When it isn't, their k/d usually looks horrible even when they win. Khamm being able to cyst and build everything by himself is just too big of an advantage in pub. The drifter change might have helped the comp scene but it doesn't really make much of a difference for pub games.

Up to 248 or so, they have subsequently buffed or reduced the cost of sg, pistol, ft, gl, jp exo, railgun, and pretty much anything I can think of. Meanwhile, alien got onos hp nerf, significantly slower skulk, bilebomb, and ss fade nerf (though with the stamina-less blink fades are op as hell and personally pretty boring to play)

The only 2 instances I can think of when aliens got buffed was when they messed up the regen tick value (which got immediately reverted the subsequent patch) and fade blink change. I would argue that this blink change single-handedly brings aliens to an even playing field, but then again, that means skulks, lerks, gorges, and onos got the shaft by the virtue of the rines getting buffed so much.

Again, this might have changed in the recent patches, but the way UWE balanced the game purely around winrate was really turning me off at the time so I just stopped playing (primarily faded and felt like it went ezmode).

You can look at the threads of people talking about how slow their game loads and actually see replies saying the exact opposite. And then you can even see some of those same people that had slow loading times talk about how they don't have them any more post b259.

I don't know about you, but Build 259 seems to have slowed load times down for me. I was getting 20 seconds on Build 258 and now it's up to a minute. Also, Build 259 seems to have introduced occasional total freeze lag that I NEVER saw before.